Tent or awnings are among the leisure products which are ever prepared for outdoor use. However, as for a relatively large tent or awning, it is required for several persons to unfold the tent or awning successfully due to its bulky and heavy nature. Accordingly, various supporting structures have been designed to facilitate unfolding the tent or awning.
Therefore, a supporting device for supporting the top of a tent or awning was proposed which is easy to unfold, as shown in FIGS. 1-3. The supporting device comprises: a connecting seat 1′ which is provided with a pivoting slot 11′; a sliding seat 2′ which moves up and down with respect to the connecting seat 1′; an elastic telescopic part 3′ which is arranged in the sliding seat 2′; and a fixing plate 4′ which horizontally penetrates through a notch 23′ of the sliding seat 2′ and limits the elastic telescopic part 3′. Both ends of the fixing plate 4′ are connected onto the connecting seat 1′ by connecting nails 7′. Each tent top pole 5′ is connected within the pivoting slot 11′ in a pivoted mode respectively. A connector 6′ is connected onto each tent top pole 5′ in a pivoted mode respectively. The other end of the connector 6′ is connected within a pivoting seat 22′ at the lower portion of the sliding seat 2′ in a pivoted mode. As shown in FIG. 3, generally when the tent or awning is in the folded state, each tent top pole 5′ is subject to a concentrated force to lean together, and the connector 6′ and the sliding seat 2′ lean with each other in parallel. The sliding seat 2′ is subject to a force to move down with respect to the connecting seat 1′, and the fixing plate 4′ moves to a position over the notch 23′ of the sliding seat 2′ to reduce its distance from the sliding seat 2′. In this case the elastic telescopic part 3′ in the sliding seat 2′ is compressed in an energy accumulation state. When it is desired to fold the tent or awning, the concentrated force acting on the tent top pole 5′ is released, the sliding seat 2′ will be pushed by the elastic telescopic part 3′ to slide towards the connecting seat 1′ along the fixing plate 4′. The upper portion of the sliding seat 2′ will project outward to the upper portion of the connecting seat 1′. Due to the pivoting relationships between the connector 6′ and the sliding seat 2′ and tent top pole 5′, when the sliding seat 2′ is moving upwards, the tent top pole 5′ will be pushed outward so as to realize the function of unfolding the tent or awning. When the sliding seat 2′ moves upwards to a position where the fixing plate 4′ rests, the tent or awning can be unfold completely.
However, such a supporting device for supporting the top of a tent suffers from some drawbacks. It is required that the fixing plate for limiting the elastic telescopic part should penetrate horizontally the sliding seat. Thus, a notch should be arranged in the sliding seat. This not only impairs the strength of the sliding seat, but also influences the integrity and aesthetics of appearance. Besides, at least two connecting nails are necessary to connect the fixing plate, and are arranged outside the sliding seat. This results in the drawbacks that there are many and diverse components and that the organization is discrete.